Free parking on the streets of Old Colorado City! For an entire week! (Also downtown, but is that really important?)
To celebrate the opening of the Bijou bridge Oct. 1, bags will be put over Old Town's 137 on-street parking meters (and the rest of the city's) from then until
Saturday, Oct. 6, according to City Parking Administrator Greg Warnke.
The direction from City Council came at the request of council member Scott Hente. The idea is that many merchants, particularly downtown, have suffered financially
because of project-related access issues, and this is a way of inviting people back.
“It's going to be fabulous,” said Jim Heikes, president of the Old Colorado City Associates (OCCA) merchants group. “It will do business good. We appreciate it.”
At the same time, he does not believe the closure, which occurred the first week of January, has caused a serious downturn in his area (basically Colorado Avenue
between 24th and 27th streets). “Some might say it did, but I don't think it hurt us that much,” he said. “The Cimarron bridge was open and so was Colorado
Avenue.”
As for the free-parking week, Old Colorado City always has free parking (with a three-hour limit) in its three public lots, so the impact may not be as great as in the
downtown, where there is normally a fee for most parking spaces.